


Hold 'em

by Oienel



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: F/M, Poker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 13:04:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9182992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oienel/pseuds/Oienel
Summary: You deal the cards, and Chen gambles to win.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I may or may not be Harvey Specter's fan. And I like poker. First posted on tumblr.

You dread it before you even put the high-heels on. You dread it every night, yet you do it.

Carefully you slip your feet into your black, classic high-heels. Your left heel is plastered over with band-aids, but it hides behind now softened leather. You move your ankles around to make sure your feet are comfortable, and they you stand up. You look at yourself in the mirror of your locker, you fix your hair, smoothing stranded lock back in. You smile at your reflection, the last real smile of the night, and you shut the locker.

You go through security and are handed the ear piece. You check it before you fit it into your ear. One after another girls go out, like a trained row of police dogs. You chat until you reach the doors, where you put on your poker face and you enter the hall.

Red carpet drowns out the clatter of high-heels, quiet murmur of conversations bouncing off the golden walls. Slowly girls make their way to their positions, every single one of them reaching their tables. You can already see your destination, when your earpiece comes alive.

“We have emergency, Lloyd called in sick. We need you at the table 12.”

Your heart does a somersault, but you obediently walk past your assigned table, forward to the other room. You need to walk past the one-armed bandits to reach the door, but you cherish every step. It’s not that you don’t like working Blackjack, but… The other room means different clientele, means better tips, it means less sexual harassment, and it means, you are going to seat through the rest of your night.

Which is the best benefit of your new assignment.

You cross the threshold, and even if the second room doesn’t look different, it sure as hell feels like. You see your table, it’s not full, but a decent group is sitting there, waiting. You don’t speed up – firstly it’s indecent, secondly your feet hurt.

And you finally reach your table and sit down. Six pair of eyes focus on you. You smile a pleasant smile.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are playing texas hold ‘em.” You start as the valet gets you the deck of cards. You shuffle them as you look at the players, trying to assess them in your head. Your opinion doesn’t matter, but it keeps it fun for you. “The pot-limit variation. Big blind is five thousand with small blind being two and a half.  After the deal the table is stacked.”

You know rules, they know rules, but it doesn’t mean you can skip that part. It sets the mood, it gives the thrill, it shows that the night has begun.

You look to your left. There is older man sitting there, with a whiskey on rocks already next to his chips.

“Sir, you are betting in the small blind, “ your eyes fall on the next player, a woman in her thirties, surrounded by the air of superiority,” and you ma’am need to bet in the big blind.”

They nod, as if they didn’t know that already. You deal the cards.

*

It’s funny how whatever you deal, whether it’s blackjack or poker, whether the bets start at fifty or at five thousand the people stay the same. The maybe be wearing different clothes and drinking alcohol form different price range, the behavior stays the same.

There are those who just enjoy the game. Those who chat, laugh, and know when to stop. Those who tip you with a chip or two when the leave the table. There are those who are all in the game, whether they are addicted gamblers, pros, or just in need of the money. There are those that drink too much and get rowdy, and you need to subtly call for the security so they get this person out before they make a scene. There are those who win big and those who lose big, there are those who bet big because they want to flaunt the money, or because they doesn’t feel the value.

As the night goes by, the group at the table changes. People come, people go, they bet, they win, they lose. They drink, they play, and finally around midnight you get the first big tip of the night, a five thousand chip thrown your way, when the big winner takes the pot.

It clears the table, because it’s obvious the game cools down, so you get your break. Fifteen minutes for you to eat and go to the toilet. You remember to take your tip, and you strut back to the locker room.

When you come back (swiftly enough not to be called out through your earpiece – you wouldn’t dare to take it out) your table is full. Eight gentlemen and two ladies, chatting pleasantly and you wonder whether they are all going to play.

You sit down and raise your hand to the valet who gives you the deck, and you smile at the table as you begin to shuffle.

“Ladies and gentleman, we are playing texas hold ‘em, the pot-limit variation.”

“Let’s change it to no-limit.” Somebody dares to interrupt you, with this stupid request and you find a young man in expensive three-piece suit, clearly with a chip on his shoulder. His hair is clearly conditioned, and nails neatly manicured. Looks like daddy’s money kind of boy. You make a mental note to keep eye on him. “Let’s feel the adrenaline.”

“Sir, house doesn’t agree to play no-limit unless it’s a tournament. And I’m afraid it’s not.” You say politely.” Big blind is five thousand, with small blind being…

“Two and a half. We know, let’s play!” It’s not the same guy, but you are sure as hell that they came together. They are sitting next to each other, both of them drinking gin with tonic, and the three-piece suit is smirking. You sigh internally. Two rich boys at the table is always a pain in the ass. Two rich boys which are friends is nail ripping pain.

“And maybe you two will shut up, so the lady can finish and we can finally play?” Says the another young player, sitting to the left of the three-piece suit. This one has a rosary on his finger and is drinking marguerite. But he has the same air of a rich boy.

So you have rosary, three-piece suit and red bowtie at the table, three possibly irritating posh dudes.

You ignore them and continue your speech.

“With small blind being two and a half. After the deal the table is stacked. Sir, “you look at the man on your left. Another young male with impossibly dark eyes,” you will be betting in the small blind, “your eyes fall on the next player, the rosary,” and you, sir, need to bet in the big blind.

They both nod, and you shuffle the cards for the last time. You look around the table, dark eyes on your left, next rosary, three-piece suit, red bowtie, blond girl, omega watch, ginger girl, glasses, bald, and mole under eye next to your right.

You deal the cards, every single one of the players gets two. Dark eyes places the small bet and rosary the big one, and your eyes fall on the third chair, the three-piece suit. You wait patiently as he checks his cards and throws the chips in.

“Three calls.” You hear your own voice and you turn to the next player, red bowtie. He looks at his cards, and you have to bite back the smile when he looks right to his friends. Then he looks as his stack of chips and throws few on the table.

“Four calls.” Blond girl smiles as he throws 5 chips on the table. “Five calls.” Omega watch and ginger throws you their cards. “Six folds. Seven folds.” Glasses and bald both call and mole folds.

You turn back to the dark eyes. He throws two chips on the table. “One calls.”

Rosary checks his cards once again, and you’ve been dealing long enough to know that he does this just to drawl the game out, to focus players on him. He has nice, manly hands. But not bulky. Slender, but manly.

“Call.” You gather his chips to your left side.

“Seven in, pot is thirty five thousand.” You say and knock on the table. “The flop.”

You put the first card on the deck under the chips and deal three cards on the table. Two of clubs, 6 of diamonds, and queen of diamonds. You look up at the three-piece suit, and he winks at you as he pushes six chips into your reach. You check them quickly.

“Three raises, twelve thousand.” Bowtie folds, but the blond girl pushes six chips in. “Five calls.” Glasses and bald folds. So does dark eyes.

Once again rosary does a show of deciding what to do. Once again you focus on his hands, his right hand playing with chips. Finally he pushes twelve thousand in.

“Two calls. Three in, seventy one thousand in the pot.” You knock on the table. “ Turn.”

The next card you deal is the eight of clubs.

The table looks at the three-piece suit. He promptly knocks on the table.

“Three checks.” The blond girl smiles and throws in ten chips.

“Five raises, twenty thousand.” Both rosary and three-piece suit call, and so does the girl.

“Three in, hundred thirty one thousand in the pot.” You knock on the table, ready to deal the last card. “River.”

The last card is six of spades. You are not surprised at all when three-piece checks. Girls raises to thirty thousand and rosary calls.

Three-piece looks at his cards again, and you can feel that he doesn’t believe he has a winning hand. You are sure that no one is surprised when he throws his cards to you, with a resigned puff of air. Now it’s only rosary and blond girl. He is looking at her with a pleasant smile, with one eyebrow raised in question. He looks relaxed and ready to play. He is handsome, but in boyish way. She studies him carefully, but finally she decides.

She pushes all of her chips in, and you find it overdramatic to do in the first round. You quickly shuffle through the chips.

“Five all-in, sixty five thousands and a half.” Now all the table is focused on rosary. He has more chips, so he isn’t facing the ‘big loss’, but still the stakes are high. But he looks relaxed as he counts his chips. He calls.

He should be the first one to show his cards, but the girl is overexcited and she just flips her. You are taken aback, but you say nothing as you take her cards. She has queen of spades and six of clubs.

“Sixes full of queens.” You announce placing the her hole cards between common once to show the hand. You look expectantly at rosary and he smiles brightly, so his eyes disappear and he throws his cards.

The blond girl shrieks in delight as she wins the pot of three hundred twenty two thousand. You push the stack her way and you gather the cards. You realize the dark eyes is also the part of their group as they tease the rosary about his stupid loss.

You are a nosy person so in your curiosity you check his hand, queen of hearts and queen of spades. He would have had queens full of sixes, a winning hand.

You look up surprised and unfortunately your eyes lock. Rosary holds your eyes daring you to say something, but you look down to shuffle the cards.

*

Mole, glasses and ginger girl are quick to leave the table. You suspect that they weren’t prepared to part with their money. Rosary lost to the blond girl three more times, having a better hand two of those three times.

But nobody at the table had an idea that he was losing on purpose. Which was ridiculous. But it wasn’t your business so you didn’t say a word.

You knock on the table. “Turn.” You say as you place fourth card. Now there is five of clubs, four of hearts, five of spades and queen of spades, with seventy thousand in the pot. Girl raises to fifteen thousand and rosary calls. The rest has already folded.

“Jongdae, we know that you are trying to be chivalrous here, but maybe you should stop giving the lady money for free.” Says dark eyes, and you deep down you agree. Rosary just laughs.

“Two in. Hundred thousand in the pot. River.” You say as you knock on the table and deal the fifth card. It’s an ace of clubs.

Rosary, or Jongdae, folds and the blond girl laughs, throwing her ace of spades and four of clubs on the table. Two pairs, pair of aces and pair of fours with a queen.

“I think I should at least buy you dinner for all that money I made off you.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you did.” He says with an easy smile, and you cannot believe how relaxed he is for a person that lost half a million. And yet you find that intriguing. She calls valet and finds piece of paper and writes down her number as the table observes. She hands rosary her number just when valet comes to help her with the chips.

You gather the cards, and once again check his hand. Five of hearts and four of diamonds. A winning hand.

“Gentlemen, I’m going to call it a night. Thank you for your generosity.” She says cheerful and throws you a five thousand chip. You thank her and she leaves, proud and sated.

“That number cost you a fortune.” Says bowtie with a hearty laugh, when the girl is out of range. Rosary just shrugs. Bowtie downs his drink and gets up.” Ok guys, I’m not going to sit with this loser anymore, who wants to play blackjack?”

Both dark eyes and three-piece suit laugh and stand up. They pat the shoulders of rosary and saunter off, clearly tipsy.

There are three players left at the table so you announce the break, hoping that when you get back there will be none.

As you stand up to walk away you see rosary folding a crane from a napkin. You know you shouldn’t say anything, he can easily report you, but you can’t stop yourself.

“Nine hundred ninety nine of them, and you’ll stop folding on the winning hand.” He looks up, surprised and freezes. Then he smile at you, this pleasant smile he shown the blond girl so many times.

Thrill goes down your spine as you walk away.

You are out of luck, because when you come back there are six people at your table, rosary is among them. You won’t admit a satisfaction you felt while seeing him still at his seat.

You sit down, take the deck from the valet and clear your throat.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are playing texas hold ‘em. The pot-limit variation. Big blind is five thousand with small blind being two and a half.  After the deal the table is stacked.” They all nod. You call the players that need to bet the small and big blind and you deal the hole cards.

You can smell that it’s a shitty deal. What is surprising it’s the fact that rosary wins it at the turn, making everybody else fold, when there is valet of diamonds, six of diamonds, five of diamonds and four of heart on the table. This is not a bad common shuffle, but still he makes them fold. Having eight of heart and queen of spades on his hand.

The next round he wins with three of valets. The next round is pretty exciting as four players are still in when you deal the river. With the pot standing at half a million (it’s that time of the night – people are drunk, and tired, and high on adrenaline, and they just let their hand slip when they bet) rosary wins with queen-high-straight-flush. It earns him a ovation from the people that gathered around the table to watch the game.

You don’t understand why. You know he can win. He could have one most of his games with the blond girl, and he is winning now (he just recovered his lost money with just one game for fuck’s sake), and yet he did what he did.

After that game he leaves the table.

But your mind keeps serving you the same question over and over again.

*

You are thrilled when your shift ends. It’s the first time in your life when you go to cash the tip chips of the overall value of fifteen thousand.

“Good night?” Asks Erin when you hand her the chips and you just smile. “You’ve been dealing the twelfth, right? Lloyd’s table? So I have a message for you.”

You are surprised when she hands you the paper folded into crane with another chip. You push the chip back to Erin so she cashes it in and you unfold the paper. There is a sketch of a chip with four last digits of its serial number crossed out and a question mark.

“Give me the chip back.” You say suddenly feeling overwhelmed. Erin is surprised but she hands it back to you with the check for fifteen thousand. You look at the chip, it’s serial being 802012.

You are tired, you are stupid, you should go home.

But you don’t even change as you go straight for the elevators. You find the room 2012, and you knock on the doors before you can talk you out of this idea.

Answer comes pretty quickly in a form of a knock on the other side of the doors.

You laugh out loud. You find it refreshing to hear your own, quite cheerful, laugh. But you are going to play the game.

“Check.” You say, not knowing the pot.

“Raise. Jacket.” It’s rosary’s voice.

“You want me to play strip poker in the hall, without cards?” You ask matter-of-factly. “How much do you have left?”

He laughs and you like the sound. You’d like it better if there were no doors separating you.

“Tie, shirt, suspenders, pants, shoes, socks.”

“Suspenders are one with pants. And no underwear?”

“I’m afraid that you’ll have to check for yourself. How about you?”

“Let’s just say that if I decide to go all in, you won’t have another option.”

“Then go all in.” His voice is suddenly lower, and you really want to win that hand.

“All in.” You say and the door swings open. As he said, his jacket was already off and his white collar shirt had its sleeves rolled up and it showed his forearms. The contrast between the white color of the garment and his skin was striking. Strikingly arousing.

“I call.” He says with a disarming smile.

“Nothing left to fold here.” You say.

You both go in for the kiss at the same time. Your hand clenches around his wrist, fingertips feeling the smooth skin, his hand lands on the back of your hair, just under your bun as he lands the first kiss of the night on your parted lips.

You don’t usually do that.

That meaning kissing the client, pushing him back into his room, kicking the door closed. You don’t usually open your working shirt in haste as your client pushes the garment off your shoulder. You don’t usually throw yourself on the bed in the hotel you work at, while the guest is hooking the finger into his tie and he works the knot loose so he can take it off. You don’t watch your client open his shirt you don’t call him to you, you don’t run your hands down his chest, while he fights with your fly.

You don’t push your naked chest into his hands as he drives into you. You don’t moan out loud, you don’t call his name, you don’t leave the fiery red marks on his back. You don’t hook your ankles behind his back and you don’t keep him in place so you can roll on the bed until you are the one straddling him.

Your clients don’t usually hold your hips, they don’t help you keep the pace, they don’t help you ride them, then don’t engrave little half moons of their nails into your skin. They don’t sit up and bite your neck as you pant, and writhe, and lose yourself as you fight for every slide up and you relish every slide home. You don’t usually have your client to let your hair down from your up do, they don’t usually brush them with their fingers, they don’t really entangle their hand into your hair, fisting it holding you close, as they nip at their jaw, as you cry in frustration and need.

You don’t usually sweat while with clients. You don’t pant, you don’t whisper, you don’t moan. You don’t get a goose bumps, you don’t feel the pleasure so blinding and overpowering that you stop to feel your legs, muscles cramping and shaking, and leaving you in the sex induced haze.

You don’t usually orgasm with the client, you don’t usually have a supernova explode in your gut, whipping your state clean, clearing your mind, and turning off the outside world.

You pass out on the bed. Maybe not really pass out, since you are conscious, but all your strength have left you.

“Wow.” He sounds hoarse and in a dire need of water.” You know that there is a champagne waiting for us?”

“I don’t care.” You mumble into the sheets. They smell of sweat, sex and money. It’s not an unpleasant smell.

“It’s like winning the lotto.” He laughs and the bed springs to life as he stands up. You shuffle a little on the bed so you can look at his naked body as he walks to the bucket filled with ice. Cliché.

But you don’t oppose when he brings you the drink.

You sit up to drink, and you don’t miss the appreciative look he gives you.

“I would say it’s more like taking the whole pot.” You say after the first sip.

“True. But I would say it’s harder to win the lottery than to win in poker.” You laugh, saluting him with the glass. He settles back on the bed and invites you to cuddle. Which is weird, but you decide that you don’t care and you just go in.

The silence is nice, but as you sip your champagne you decide to ask the question that has been on your mind this whole time.

“Why did you let her win? Was it really to get her number? Seems like an overkill at this point.” He laughs as he stretches to put his empty glass on the night stand.

“Are you jealous now?” You don’t even sputter. You just look at him in silence until he relents. He shrugs. “ She was clearly new to playing. Remember how she just threw you her cards in the first round, even though I should be the one to show my hand first? I couldn’t bring myself to beat her after seeing her so excited. And… “He smiles mischievously.” I was sure that would drive you crazy. Why would he fold knowing that he has better hand? Why would he fold for that girl and lose half a million, and then win at the different table?”

“Seriously.” You say indignantly, and he laughs.

“That’s why I’m good at poker. I play people. Not the game.”

“So you just played me?”

“I gambled my way into your pants.”

*

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are playing texas hold ‘em. Pot-limit, with ante being ten thousand, no blinds. “ You shuffle the deck and look around the table. You’ve been promoted to the poker tables. And you love every second of it. “Place your ante’s.”

Player after player pushes in the ten thousand in chips. You check them and gather them to your left. Before you can deal the new player slides down on the chair.

Ring rosary lands on the stack.


End file.
